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Code switching is a phenomenon that has increasingly attracted more and more attention from the linguistic community. As of last forty years, it is no more deemed as a deficiency in speech, but rather as a separate area of research. However, to obtain data for further examination that would not be manipulated by priming the subjects is quite complicated and poses a challenge in creating a corpus that could be used by researchers. This paper offers examples of code switching that were produced in a second language classroom in a large public university in southwestern United States. Three levels of class, from beginner up until intermediate level, were observed and recorded. Each of the instructors--a native speaker of Spanish, a native speaker of English and an early balanced bilingual--offered their insights into the use and perceptions of code switching practice in the classroom. This observation provided a framework of reference to better understand the process that takes place in a bilingual environment of a second language classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The southeastern United States has experienced rapid growth in the Hispanic population in recent decades, giving rise to a newly forming bilingual community. The present study builds on previous work by the authors via expansion of a "variable swarm": the analysis of multiple linguistic variables simultaneously for the same set of speakers, with the goal of understanding patterns of accommodation and change within the community. The initial study included four linguistic variables (prosodic rhythm, bilingual discourse markers, the realization of /bdg/ and vowel space), and the present study adds an additional four variables (bilingual filled pauses, subject pronoun realization, code switching, and the labiodental realization of orthographic ) for 23 speakers of Mexican and Central American origin across two sociolinguistic generations (G1 vs. G2). Results for individual speakers show a pattern of adoption of some features by speakers of both generations (such as English-influenced prosodic rhythm and phonological filled pauses), while other, possibly more salient forms directly integrated from English (English discourse markers and code switching) exhibit later, highly variable rates of adoption, suggesting that speakers may consciously manipulate these variables as part of a process of active identity construction. Likewise, G1 speakers show fewer correlations among linguistic variables than G2 speakers, and patterns reveal that some bilingual forms are incorporated in tandem due to shared phonological traits or discourse functions. The innovative swarm analysis further contributes to the advancement of techniques employed in sociolinguistic research by serving as a bridge between traditional first- and second-wave studies that focus on a single variable, and third-wave studies that focus more on variation at the individual level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The language practices of Latinos in the US continue to attract attention from politicians, educators, journalists, linguists and the general Hispanic and non-Hispanic public. While monolingual speakers of English in the US expect Hispanics to shift to English like other minority language speakers have done in the past, monolingual speakers of Spanish expect them to speak "pure" Spanish. Even Spanish-English bilingual speakers criticize Latinos for mixing Spanish and English or speaking Spanglish. This term has been rejected by some linguists who claim that it is technically flawed and only applies to casual oral registers. In this paper I consider the linguistic nature, sociolinguistic functions and attitudes towards Spanglish, I show that Latinos are using this hybrid, heteroglossic variety beyond casual oral registers, and I suggest a broader perspective which not only considers the linguistic features of Spanglish but also the political, social and cultural issues involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Spanish-English code-switching in the United States is not confined to the speech of fluent bilinguals, although the latter group exhibits the greatest consistency of structural patterns as well as the highest likelihood of conscious and voluntary control over language switching. Among less fluent bilinguals (including heritage speakers of Spanish as well as foreign language students producing the second language under duress) incursions from English may depart significantly from structural patterns characterizing fluent bilinguals, and may represent involuntary and/or unconscious insertion of English elements, ranging from tags such as you know and I mean to larger discourse chunks. The present study compares data from a cluster of low-fluency Spanish heritage speakers and a group of fluent bilingual Spanish-English code-switchers in the United States, and proposes that the notion of congruent lexicalization (e.g. as proposed by Muysken, 2000) be expanded to include 'ragged' and possibly involuntary code-mixing among semi-fluent bilinguals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores Spanish language maintenance in Southbridge, Massachusetts, a suburban town with a vibrant Puerto Rican community. The investigation focuses on the extent to which Southbridge Puerto Ricans use Spanish and English at home, and their attitudes toward Spanish language maintenance. Survey data, especially the impact of factors affecting language loyalty, are analyzed and interpreted in light of historical trends, previous research, and first-hand knowledge of the community. Statistical analyses (correlations, ANOVA, t-tests) indicate that age and percentage of life span spent on the mainland play a significant role in language maintenance. For US-born Puerto Ricans, living in a dense and relatively small Puerto Rican enclave appears to arrest but not stop language shift and heritage language loss at home, the domain in which minority language speakers can exercise the most control in terms of which language to use. Given the particular characteristics of this Puerto Rican community (e.g. continued influx of immigrants, positive attitudes toward Spanish language maintenance), it is possible for Spanish to continue to be used at home, although not as the exclusive or dominant language. Ethnic enclaves, though, do not seem to provide a safe harbor for heritage languages, as previously hypothesized in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study seeks to evaluate bilinguals’ attitudes towards the contact forms that are manifested in the speech of Spanish-English bilinguals in the United States, and the factors that contribute to this linguistic assessment. Towards that end, bilinguals of diverse proficiencies are presented with five versions of the fairytale Little Red Riding Hood/La Caperucita Roja: a normative Spanish text, two Spanish texts that contrast in the type of English lexical insertions made, and two code-switched texts, differentiated by type of intra-sentential alternation represented. Multiple measures are used to evaluate participants’ attitudes, including scalar judgments on personality characteristics of the authors of the texts. Data from fifty-three participants unveil a continuum of preferences that largely confirms the hypotheses posited: Spanish-English bilinguals evaluate single-noun insertions more positively than code-switching and report more fine-grained distinctions — differentiating specific versus core noun insertions and felicitous versus infelicitous code-switching — as commensurate with social and linguistic factors, such as language heritage and linguistic competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a description of English contact features in the Spanish of Cuban Americans in West New York, New Jersey, placing special emphasis on the phenomenon known as modeling, and offering a comparison between modeling and other types of contact phenomena, both within and across different generations of speakers. In addition, particular attention is paid to whether the innovations found in the speech of these Cuban Americans can be interpreted as providing internal evidence of stable bilingualism or of language shift.